spacesurfer

Amazing news from HobbyBoss: 1/700 Soviet Aircraft Carrier Baku

OK friends, you are right, but there is a problem: I have never ever done any washing to any of my ships and subs... and my shipyard is a bit "soviet style" - lack of high-tech is balanced with lot of enthusiasm But maybe one day...

Thanks a lot, so far my best ship

This is my Varyag 1/700 from Trumpeter. It´s out of the box plus Lion Roar PE radars. This is my second attempt of using PE, it was quite fun, Lion Roars are very easy to work with.

Unbelievably beutiful model! Great photos showing all the details! I am not a fan of IJN but this Yamato is just fantastic! Well done, great job!

Another older kit of Soviet Navy kit from Dragon. It is pretty much similar to 1/700 Nanuchka, which I reviewed here: viewtopic.php?t=21746 . Here you get two sprues each containing parts for building two ships - Tarantul (I or II) and Osa (I or II). "Bonus" of each sprue is MH-6 helicopter and "Iranian Gun Boat" - a real joke, because it looks more like an life boat and lacks any detail at all . Generally the kit is very nice and again a great piece to all USSR Navy fans. It is again from e-bay, the price again awful, nearly 31 EUR. Check the size of the hulls in comparison to Varyag 1/700: left to right - Tarantul, Nanuchka, Osa.

This is an older kit of guided missile corvette Nanuchka - Project 1234. Box contains two sprues + decal sheet. You can build Nanuchka I or Nanuchka III modification. Each sprue contains also a small piece of US-carrier deck with A-6E aircraft. The reason of this "bonus" is unknown to me... I would expect an USSR aircrafts next to USSR warships... Anyway, all nice molded, very easy to build and great piece to all USSR Navy fans. I got it from e-bay for an awful price approaching 25 EUR (for such a small ship )

... and there´s more on pilot.strizhi.info, section "smotr" - not only 941, but also Alfa, Victor, Echo, Yaks 38 and 141, about Severodvinsk shipyards Sevmash and Zvezdochka and more....

Yes, one day it will be Baku (Gorshkov), the conversion of hull is almost completed, now comes the new superstructure. Your build-up of Dniestr gave me courage to start this project and helped much to manage the work with Evergreen plastics.

Hello friends! I hope you don’t mind writing my review in English. This kit is quite rare on any modelling webs. I love Soviet/Russian aircraft carrying cruisers, so when I’ve seen it on ebay I had to have it. The only other Minsk you can have in 1/700 is well know Trumpeter kit. But the Aoshima version is a little bit different. So what is in the box? You’ll get one-piece hull, one-piece deck, waterline plate and 4 other frames. Biggest one carries mostly the superstructure parts + P500 Bazalt missiles, the other two quite lots of detailed parts and the last one carries the air-wing of the carrier. You’ll get totally 4 Kamovs 25 and 12 Yaks 36. The instruction sheet text is completely in Japanese and therefore useless. Happily however the scheme is clear and easy to follow. The decal sheet contains only ship name plates and tactical number 117. There is another one decal sheet for the aircraft markings containing red stars in six sizes: from very small to ultra small. Overall the kit is quite nicely moulded regarding its age, some details are better than Trumpeter’s, some are worse. Interesting is, that Trumpeter’s kit’s hull is about 2 cm shorter. On the other side, Trumpeter details are totally over-scale and I had to replace lot of them with spare parts from other kits when I was building Kiev. As for accuracy, the real Minsk had reshaped portside platform for AK-630 in early 80-ties, this Aoshima kit has the original shape from late 70-ties. I’ am looking forward to building this nice kit; maybe I’ll use some PE for the first time.

Interesting topic... After seeing many many many pictures of Russian warships I have to say this: Russian do not have any problems to paint their ships in any "available" paint scheme, depending mostly on what colours are in stores On those two pics of P.Velikij: Obviously taken at the same time, once it seems like there is black line bellow the white, other picture shows clearly only red bellow white. My oppinion - the black is only a dirty red. When having No. 183 P.Velikij was painted in lighter grey than now, with No. 099, it is in darker grey, with part of the deck black (or very dark grey) and the waterline seem to be white +black again. For example Kiev vs. Mins: Kiev had almost always white + black waterline and there is no picture showing Minsk with other than white+red waterline.... The same it is with Novorossijsk - always W+R and Baku - always W+B. Most pictures of Kirov shows it with W+B waterline, Frunze had W+B until cca 1990, then with No. 010 it appears first time with W+R - exactly shown in pictures above. Finally mighty Kuznetsov: from 1991 until 2008 the ship is getting darker and darker: from light/medium grey to dark grey and W+R waterline.

Will this help?

Here are some less known pictures of Kirov - cca 1986 in Atlantic, except of the last, where is Kirov at anchors at the end of his active career.

... SLOVAKIA Yes, Slovakia and a big fan of Kirov-class and all other Soviet/Russian ships/subs!

Great job Jedrek, I did not have enough time to download and upload all these nice images However they made me a bit unhappy, because part of the deck is black and my P.Velikij has it in standard Russian red-brown.

Because I love this staggering cruisers, here are som more details of P.Velikij. Enjoy:

You would probably not believe, but I have no experience with PE parts. I even don´t know how to work with them. And finaly, PE for ships are almost not available here in Slovakia. But maybe one day I will try it.

The Kirov class – 1/700 – I have built two of them all so far: Kirov (Dragon) and Petr Velikij (Trumpeter). Frunze (Trumpeter) gave me my friend as completed. It was in poor condition and I had to do my best to re-build it and re-paint it. It still needs some repairs. As you can see, Dragon´s kit has a shorter hull (the bow is shorter). Easier to build is Dragon; Trumpster´s superstructures are quite complicated and require more patience and precision to complete them properly. Details of both kits are comparable, except of Dragon´s main Fregat and Voschod radars. The original parts were too simple, so I replaced them with scratch build parts (Voschod) or Trumpeter´s parts (Fregat). No metal parts were used; small modifications were carried out, mostly on P.Velikij. Remaining unit of Kirov class – Kalinin is under construction together with Marshal Ustinov and Kuznetsov (all Trumpeter). Admiral Kuznetsov (old, by Italeri) and my Kiev can be seen in pictures.

Yes, my website is located in Czech republic - because such an incredibly easy to build blog you simply cannot find in Slovakia, however I am living in Slovakia But thanks for welcome

Kiev – Trumpeter – 1/700. It took some time to finish this spectacular wessel of Soviet Navy. Unlike my Alfa 1/400 the Kiev kit has been a bit modified. I replaced a lot of small parts, because they were over scale. I used spare parts from other Trumpeter and Dragon kits. Both main radars Fregat and Voschod, 75 mm gun+turrets, all AK-630, both and RBU-6000 have been replaced. In addition, some original parts were a bit modified. No metal parts were used. Kamov helicopters are also from other Trumpeter and Dragon kits. Two small yellow vehicles are from Italeri Kuznetsov, the big one is from Italeri Nimitz class carrier (similar to one I have seen on some image of real ship, added mostly to make it look more spectacular ).

... according to some pictures and schemes, the stern has not completely correct shape - horizontal stabilizers are the problem, they continue as a thin "line" alongside the hull till cca the line of fore edge of the sail. Please see bellow:

I really appreciate your friendly aproach to foreign visitors Yes, Alfa will get one layer of colourless paint in the near future. I am finishing TAKR Kiev, I will add its pictures here. I have tryed on-line modelling shop from CzechRepublic once. All has been OK, but the problem were the delivery charges, which were almost as high as the price of the kit - this is really confusing... On the other hand, I can use our Slovak shops, but here are some brands NOT available OR ship/submarine kits are not in offer... Generally ship / submarine modelling is not much popular here in Slovakia. Of 444 kits displayed on local modelling contest in my hometown I counted 2 ships and 6 submarines...

I plan to add one layer of colourless paint, I did not have enough time to do so, actually I have not done this to any of kits before... Alfa is going to be the first One more thing: there is quite bad situation in Slovakia with buying necessary equipment for modelling and also kits. I bought this Alfa in Czech republic, in Slovakia is no reliable shop or e-shop offering for example Alanger, Maquette, Zvezda or even Trumpeter kits. Only colours I can buy in my hometown Banska Bystrica (central Slovakia) are Revell and Humbrol...

I am from Slovakia, I can understand Polish only a little. This forum is great and helps me much in modelling soviet and russian ships and submarines. I hope you dont´mind I write in English

K-123 Alfa - Maquette - 1/400, out of the box, no modification